[caleach]

I'm trying to figure out if Airport Extreme will work on my new 15" TiBook. It keeps talking about "Extreme" ready machines, but since the card looks different and they don't offer the older base stations through the Apple Store anymore (Education anyway)?? Does the new card go inside where the existing 802.11b card is or does it go into the PCMCIA slot, or not at all compatable.?

Thanks,

[veryniceguy2002]

Originally posted by caleach:
I'm trying to figure out if Airport Extreme will work on my new 15" TiBook. It keeps talking about "Extreme" ready machines, but since the card looks different and they don't offer the older base stations through the Apple Store anymore (Education anyway)?? Does the new card go inside where the existing 802.11b card is or does it go into the PCMCIA slot, or not at all compatable.?

Thanks,

15" PowerBook would not accept the new "Extreme" airport card from Apple. The Extreme card has a compact-PCI interface, which is not compatable the 15" PowerBook's AirPort slot of PC card (PCMCIA) slot.

[ghporter]

The Extreme card is a mini-PCI card, while the original AirPort card is a modified PCMCIA card. Mini-PCI cards use a connector that looks like a notebook's DIMM connector, rather than the pin/socket type used in PCMCIA cards. In other words, the two kinds of cards are completely incompatible. On the other hand, the mini-PCI standard allows for a PCI bus connection to the card, which is much faster than the PCMCIA-CardBus connection.

Unless the computer you're looking at explicitly states it's "Extreme Ready," don't expect it to be.

And while you can't find the old AirPort Base Station from Apple any more, you don't need an Apple product to serve as your access point. <canned statement>"AirPort" is Apples's brand for IEEE 802.11b standard wireless networking, so any equipment that is 802.11b compliant (or marked as "WiFi" compliant) will work with (orignial) AirPort products.</canned statement> Additionally, non-Apple access points are often hundreds of dollars less expensive.

[TMLai]

Yes, AE base station will work with the Tibook with the old airport card, but only at the old speed! If you don't have a PC with a wireless network card in it. I would recommended you stay with Apple or apple supported products. Because you will need a PC to do the 1st time setup for any PC only base station!

[ghporter]

Originally posted by TMLai:
Yes, AE base station will work with the Tibook with the old airport card, but only at the old speed! If you don't have a PC with a wireless network card in it. I would recommended you stay with Apple or apple supported products. Because you will need a PC to do the 1st time setup for any PC only base station!

This had been true for many early wireless devices but it is no longer the case. I haven't seen a new device available in the last 18 months that required one platform or another to configure it. What new boxes use today is your web browser-that's all! The only Apple-related issue you may have to worry about is that very few devices support AppleTalk, whether they are from "Mac-friendly" companies or not. If AppleTalk is not a big deal for you, save a LOT of money and buy your access point/wireless router from Netgear, Linksys, D-Link, SMC...whomever.

[TMLai]

Sorry, my last non apple router was more than 18th month old. But I also have had problem with a print server I bought last month that have a build-in web base config program. Which get its ip address automatically upon power up from the DHCP server. I was uable to figure out the ip address its used so the web base setup was useless. Lucky, our network included both Mac and PC and I can setup it up easy with the included PC base config program.

Having said that, I think most of the new products do set itself to a fixed ip address upon the 1st power up. So the web base setup should work most of the time.

[ghporter]

Absolutely, most new boxes use a fixed IP. And whoever wrote the code for your print server, that allowed it to even think about using DHCP (FOR A PRINT SERVER!?!?) needs a nice swift kick in the glutes. Sorry a bad programmer (bad, BAD programmer! No coffee! No pizza!) gave you such a bad experience.

I have two different routers with print servers (a US Robotics and a Siemens), and both only allow fixed IPs.

[threestain]

what is appletalk by the way?

[ghporter]

AppleTalk is an Apple-specific network protocol that makes it easy to connect various peripherals to Macs. It predates wide acceptance of home TCP/IP networking, and has been pretty much superseded by TCP/IP.